Arriving in Lord Howe Island - minus luggage....

After an early start (for us, anyway) we arrived at Sydney Airport, ready for our flight to Lord Howe Island.  We boarded the transit bus at the domestic terminal, where a customer service officer advised us that because we were going to have some 'weather' flying to Lord Howe, they were going to load some extra fuel.  Good news, because we certainly don't want to run out of fuel in the middle of the flight.  The downside, of course, is that because of the extra fuel load, some of our luggage had to stay behind - about 14 bags in total.  We had been warned of this by friends prior to leaving, and I had discussed with Trev that perhaps we should pack half of our clothes in each suitcase, just in case.  Trev said, 'no, we should be ok', so we packed as per usual.  Bad move, Trev! The only saving grace is that it was his bag that got left behind, not mine!

And to compound the problem, one of the travel tips we have learned over the years is to take a change of clothes in our carry-on luggage in case of baggage loss.  So we both did that, except that Trevor forgot to pack any spare jocks.  So he's really not doing too well so far.  On arrival at the  airport Trev was issued with an 'emergency kit' from Qantas consisting of some lovely Qantas pjs and toiletries - together with a $100 voucher to be spent at any of the stores as compensation for having no clothes.  We were greeted by Jess, from Lorhiti Apartments, who drove us home via Joy's store, so we could stock up on supplies using the Qantas voucher.  We bought some staples for breakfast, as well as wine and beer, and that was the end of our voucher.

Our 1-bedroom apartment is lovely, with a deck at the front and the back, surrounded by lush greenery.  The island is very small, with a few restaurants (some of them are closed for winter), and the policy is that if you are going to eat at one of the restaurants, your hosts will drive you there at 6.30pm, and the restaurant staff will drive you back to your apartment when you've finished your meal.  Very civilised.

On our first evening we went to dinner at Pandanus restaurant, just down the road from us.  We had a lovely Malaysian meal there with a couple of drinks, then decided to walk back to our apartments - all uphill of course, in the dark, but we had a torch so we survived.  Looking forward to exploring the island tomorrow.